The little boy’s interest in the story had reached its peak. Marco let him anticipate the ending a few seconds more before plunging the narrative home.

“And then it died,” he said. “The end.”

“That’s all it took to kill it?” the boy asked.

“It didn’t even take that,” Marco said. “I never stabbed the jewel. By the time I reached it, the team had been throwing everything they had at it for minutes and minutes. It didn’t survive that, even without me stabbing the jewel.”

The kid wilted with the letdown. “Really? You didn’t get to be the hero?”

“Oh, I did. Eventually. But let me tell you something.” Marco lifted the small boy by the waist and set him on the counter. “Being a hero is good, but everyone living is better. Every time. Because then you get to tell the stories, good or bad.”

The rest of the town took turns telling stories, and people pried particularly good ones out of reluctant tellers for the benefit of their guests. It seemed that this close to the edge of the outer seas, everyone had an adventure or two under their belt whether they liked it or not.

As the crowd finally began to clear, Marco saw the little boy again, trying to stare at him without being obvious that was happening. He failed miserably. There was something in his eye that Marco couldn’t quite decipher, something like jealousy and hunger all rolled up.

“He looks like you did.” Elisa was suddenly shoulder to shoulder with Marco, leaning her head gently on his shoulder. “Back then, on Gulf Isle.”

“You think?”

“I do. You’d sit and listen to every captain that came through. Every story. It was the only thing you ever did besides train, really. I miss that. Him looking at you that way was like being home for a bit. I miss that.”

Something in Elisa’s voice made Maco turn. There was something sad in her eyes, which was rare and surprising coming from her. Marco was reminded, suddenly, how much he depended on her and how little she got from him in return.

“Maybe we should go back. After the system is satisfied by our stay here, I mean. We could go visit,” Marco said.

“I don’t know. We are pretty far out. It would take a long time to get there then back out to open water.”

“Then it will take a long time. We can just go out the other side, anyway. We’ve only explored in this direction, right? There are other directions.”

“Oh.” Elisa looked stunned. “Yes, I guess that’s true. We could go home a different way, too. We’d hardly waste any time that way.”

“Then we are doing it,” Marco said. “Conversation over.”

“You are a pretty good friend. You know that?”

Marco looped his arm around Elisa’s shoulder and gave her a little squeeze.

“I hope so. Because you are a great one.”

—

The rooms were just as good as the food was, complete with huge, comfortable beds. The team took a four-bed room and hit their pillows hard, victims of a particularly long day and good, strong ale. Marco dreamt of home. The details of it were shockingly clear. He could smell the sea air over the tar of the docks, and he could hear the creaking of the boards in Tatric’s shack fighting back against the wind. He could feel his own old pillow and his own worn-out mattress in his tiny room.

Marco woke up suddenly from that vision, losing the details like cargo in a shipwreck, the memories of that place sucked down by a post-sleep whirlwind back to a foggy, everyday blur of forgetfulness. In its place was a banging on their door, an insistent sort of call back to action. Marco struggled up from his bed, let the caller know he was coming with a yell, and shrugged his gear on.

“You have that battleship, right?” The boy from the night before was at their door, flushed and out of breath. “The stories you told last night were true?”

“Yes, mostly,” Marco said. “Why?”

“Because I found someone for you to fight!” the kid nearly shrieked. “Right here!”

Without waiting, the child darted off into the early morning gloom. Marco heard him taking the stairs three or four at a time, the impact of his tiny feet booming out like cannon shots. He looked at the team, who didn’t seem to have much more clarity on what was happening than he did.

When they got outside the building, the boy was disappearing around a corner towards the docks, and they dutifully jogged after him until they turned around the buildings blocking their view as well. A good portion of the town was there already, armed to the extent they could be and staring out to sea.

“What’s the story here, Kuzai?” Marco asked when he saw the pulper.

Kuzai looked up at Marco and shook his head. “I don’t know much, but it looks like there’s a ship approaching the town that knows it's trouble. I don’t know how.”

“Find out, if you could,” Marco said. “We might be the strongest force here at the moment. It could matter.”

This text was taken from NovelBin. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Kuzia nodded and moved closer to the mob of residents while Marco jumped aboard the ship and grabbed the spyglass. The other ship showed up for him finally as a silhouette against the dark morning sky, small but lethal in shape. The comparison enchantments on the glass told him the ship was ranked as a six, slightly more valuable than his own in terms of either craftsmanship, crew, or carried goods.

“Learn anything from that?” Kuzai circled back around the time Marco handed the spyglass off to Aethe.

“A big. The ship is comparable to ours. It’s not a specific, fleshed-out measure, though.”

“Well, I wish it were weaker.” Kuzai pointed at a small, quiet-looking man near the edge of the crowd. “He’s what amounts to the leader of this place, though I doubt he ever gives orders as such. According to him, this ship has swept in four times in as many years. Two times they fought them off, and two times they managed to get a landing party on the docks and cleaned the town out.”

“But didn’t kill them?” Riv said. “Not normal pirate tactics.”

“No. But certainly profitable, if they could keep that up forever,” Kuzai said. “But eventually they’d get caught.”

“Not the last few times.” The boy was back, bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement. “They got away first. I heard all about it. Their ship is fast. By the time the big ships here got launched, they were out of sight.”

“Huh,” Marco said. “I guess our break is over then.”

“Really?” Kuzai said. “Honestly, the reason the other ships didn’t launch in time was probably related to negotiations for pay. Not much profit in taking out a ship for its own sake, after all.”

Marco decided not to explain why that was different for him, particularly. Instead, he did a double-check of his gear.

“It’ll be fine. Any objections, crew?”

The crew shook their heads and moved towards the ship, jumping aboard and getting to their stations. As a soft cheer rang out from the outpost, Marco was surprised to see Kuzai climbing aboard as well.

“You sure you want to be part of this? It’s dangerous.”

“A lot of things are dangerous. I'm part of the crew for now, right? I have to keep an eye on those rune-tomes. See how they work. I’d be a pretty sorry crafter if I didn’t.”

“Fine with me then. Riv, are we free?”

“Ready when you are!” Riv whipped the last mooring rope aboard. “Let’s go!”

Marco put a little power into the ship, letting it summon what wind it needed to push it forward while he steered straight towards the enemy. They were still in a temple’s territory, if only just, and that made their launch much quicker than it would otherwise be.

That wasn’t the only thing pushing them forward, though. Under his feet, Marco felt a new kind of energy circulating through the ship, not jumbled but still incredibly complex in dozens of ways he didn’t quite understand. As they activated for the first time, the blocks finally made themselves known to him in an official, system-recognized way.

By the time Marco finished reading it, the distance between them and the other ship had halved. The enemy craft was as clearly marked as a pirate vessel as any he had seen and had cowardice to match that lack of subtlety. They turned and began to flee as soon as the ship neared, apparently eager to avoid any conflict they weren’t sure they could easily handle.

Theirs was a fast ship, clearly built for speed and quick, unexpected strikes against soft targets. Usually, they would have been able to get away. Today, though, they were running from a ship that got more out of the wind, that felt less resistance from the water, and was manned by a unique class of what Marco was learning was close to the highest order in these parts, if not exceeding it.

“They are turning to fire!” Aethe shouted. “Still out of range for me.”

“And me,” Elisa said. “They must have all their upgrades in total range. Get us closer.”

“All right.” Marco pumped more power into the ship, reveling in the feeling of sheer speed as they surged forward. Even as they grew closer, he saw the enemy cannons puff smoke and watched the incoming cannonballs streak towards the ship, loaded with some sort of unidentified orange powder he didn’t really want to experience up close and personal.

It wasn’t the first time they had weathered enemy fire, though.

“Brace!”

The crew heard him and ducked immediately. The ship seemed to acknowledge him, too. He felt power surge out of the magic battery at the center of the ship as runes shot out of each of the four runeslabs and moved to an intercept course with the cannonballs. The ammunition sliced through the projected runes like the paper they had flown from, but not without a cost. Something in the collision robbed them of power, stripping the orange magic from them at the same time they ate up a great deal of their speed.

The cannonballs that reached the ship plopped against the hull, barely denting the wood.

“Oh, yes.” Marco said. “I like that a lot.”

“I told you words had power. You never listened.”

“I will next time, Elisa. So we are invincible?”

“No!” Kuzai yelled from his seat behind a barrel. “Not every rune can rapid-fire. Most have recharge rates, and some of them work better at long range, or close range, or any of a dozen different parameters. Don’t trust they can do something unless you’ve seen them do it. Even then, learn as much as you can from each encounter. This is a lot of power, but it’s complex and unreliable until you know it.”

“Got it!” Marco said. “Elisa, are you in range?”

“I can fire on your command!”

“Aim, but hold! I want to try something!”

As soon as Marco thought about firing the arbalest, the ship responded in kind, draining a large chunk of energy towards that purpose. It was slightly less than the shield had taken, but still enough that Marco knew he should moderate the effect in the future if they expected a fight to take very long.

Elisa did her best to hold on to the bolt, but the newly empowered arbalest didn’t let her. As her own fire-based magical power glowed on the bolt, a second white burst of energy joined it, setting off the weapon without her willing it to fire at all. Marco blessed her for maintaining her aim as the bolt cut through the air, ignored a dozen relevant facts of physics that should have taken it off course at that range, and blew off a good quarter of the top rear of the enemy’s hull.

“Wow.”

“Yeah,” Riv said. “What are they doing now?”

The enemy crew had all approached the ship’s rail and were waving their hands frantically, ignoring their cannons in favor of communication. The captain was no better and was among them, signalling just as hard as the lowliest swabby.

“That?” Marco grinned. “If I’m not mistaken, that is a surrender.”